Conclusion

Charteris-Black, Jonathan

Abstract

The purpose of religion is to offer a unified way of thinking about the world so that it has a meaning in its totality; it makes connections between nature, man's behaviour and the cosmic order. Since metaphor is also concerned with making connections and associations it is not surprising that it is commonly drawn on in the creation of meaning in religion. Some have gone as far as to propose that the religious language is inherently metaphoric (e.g. Tacey 2015). However, we should exercise caution; within the domain of religious belief it is ultimately a matter of theological perspective whether a particular word or phrase is a literal statement or whether it is a metaphor-as Weber (1965: 9) reminds us "The sacred is the uniquely unalterable". There has been no shortage of metaphors for religion: Karl Marx famously referred to it as "the opium of the people", and-developing Bourdieu's notion of "cultural capital"-Verter (2003) proposes that it is a form of "spiritual capital"; Berger (1969) describes religion as a "sacred canopy" (see McKinnon, 2012 for other metaphors). In general terms, a literal interpretation characterises the earlier or fundamentalist stages of a religion, while metaphors characterise evolving religious discourse. Weber (1965: 9-10) comments on the transition from pre-ani-mistic naturalism to symbolism that characterises the rise of religions and emphasises the importance of analogy in the development of "mythological thinking". In my recent study of fire metaphors (Charteris-Black, 2017) I illustrate how the symbolic meanings of fire-for example as an expression of divine punishment are replaced over time by fire metaphors, but this process is irregular and represents "a discourse of awe". In Christianity, the symbolism of fire in the Old Testament was replaced by light metaphors in the New Testament, while in Islam the meaning of fire has retained its symbolism as a force for divine punishment of non-believers. Similarly, Eastern Christianity and Pentecostalism sustain a belief in the symbolism of Sacred Fire. Metaphor is therefore associated with a chrono

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Acceptance Date: May 1, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jul 6, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 14, 2021
• Journal: Metaphor and the Social World
• Print ISSN: 2210-4070
• Electronic ISSN: 2210-4097
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 122-129
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.7.1.08cha
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5951595